Blast set off near U.S. Embassy
Only suspect is injured in Beijing explosion; motive unclear
BEIJING — A 26-year-old man detonated a homemade bomb outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Thursday, injuring only himself and filling the air with smoke, police and witnesses said.
The bomb exploded in a public area at the embassy’s southeast corner, where people wait in line to apply for U.S. visas.
The Beijing Police Department posted a statement on its website identifying the suspect only by his surname, Jiang, and said he was 26 years old and a native of Tongliao city in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. He was injured on the hand by the explosive device, which was made from fireworks and was detonated about 1 p.m., police said.
An investigation into his motives is underway.
“Other than the bomber, no other people were injured and there was no damage to embassy property,” a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in a statement.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang said the case had been properly handled by police. “It is an isolated case of public security,” Geng said.
A visa agent who said he was about 30 feet away when the blast occurred said the source appeared to be an explosive device, set off by a man who had been trying to call attention to a human-rights issue.
Later Thursday, Beijing police said that the man who detonated the explosives had been suffering from hallucinations since 2016 and was diagnosed with a paranoid personality disorder. Investigators found a lighter, fragments of firecrack- ers and three unexploded firecrackers at the site of the explosion, the police statement said. It did not say if the man would be arrested or confined for psychiatric treatment.
Liang Zhou, 21, said she was waiting to apply for a student visa when she heard a bang.
“It sounded like a gas tank exploded,” said the woman.
Zhang Lisi, 47, was waiting outside for her son, a college junior who needed a visa to resume his studies in Riverside, Calif., when the bomb went off.
She thought it was a car accident.
“It sounded like a car tire had blown,” Zhang said.
Word of a blast near the embassy spread quickly on social media. Photographs and videos posted online showed smoke near the embassy’s eastern edge, as well as security personnel and police cars gathered near a nearby intersection.
But less than an hour later, the scene was largely clear and the embassy was again open for business. More than a hundred people stood outside, some unaware that a bomber had recently ignited a device less than 100 meters away.
Only a trail of blood remained on the sidewalk. Onlookers crouched around the droplets, snapping photos on their phones.
Police told reporters to leave.
Neither the police nor the embassy had any comment on a report by the ruling Communist Party newspaper Global Times that said officers had earlier removed a woman from outside the embassy who had sprayed gasoline on herself in a “suspected attempt at self-immolation” at around 11 a.m.
With the U.S. school year around the corner, Chinese students are busy finishing up paperwork so they can start classes in the fall.
Determined applicants said Thursday that they were shaken but returned to stand in the 90-degree heat.
Liang, who is headed to California, said she needed her paperwork by today.
“The explosion scared me,” she said, “but this is my last day in Beijing.”
Information for this article was contributed by Danielle Paquette and Emily Rauhala of The Washington Post; by Christopher Bodeen of The Associated Press; by Chris Buckley and Austin Ramzy of The New York Times; and by Xiaoqing Pi and staff members of Bloomberg News.